Ritual Peace Run

1. Choose a well-traveled trail near your house. Make sure you can get to it by foot. Add wildflowers, birds, large trees and running water. Make certain there is a bridge at the halfway mark long enough for two prostrate bodies to touch fingertips, but no longer.

2. Write down the groups you will be running for on small slips of paper. Include the abused, the infirm, the homeless, the incarcerated, the addicted, the lonely, the destitute, the exhausted, the war torn, the excluded, the ones you love. Allow blank pieces for any group you may be forgetting to mention.

3. Put the pieces of paper in your shirt pocket – by your heart.

4. Grow roses of all colors: Red for love fulfilled, Pink for love promised, Yellow for friendship, Purple for passion, White for purity of intention and combinations of these. Collect the petals in a bag and stuff it in your running shorts.

5. Bring holy water to sprinkle in the water under the bridge, preferably from Lourdes.

6. Wear a Mala and put a rosary in your shorts pocket.

7. Chant one syllable of a peace mantra for every foot strike.

8. In between, play peace songs on your iPod and sing along.

9. When you get to the bridge, cover it from one side to the other with flowers. Do not let anyone see you do this. Sprinkle the water and a few of the petals into the stream. Let the elements do the rest.

10. Make a peace poem out of the pieces of paper and float them in a bottle downstream, or write it on the ground by the bridge.